It’s realized that for all the benefits of telecommuting, there were three areas where more was being lost than gained.

1. Loss of informal communicationIt’s much harder for telecommuters to have the kind of informal and unplanned interaction that shares knowledge, challenges people to see things from another’s perspective, gets them out of their mental ruts, and stimulates creativity and productivity. Less communication means less collaboration.

2. Loss of trustTelecommuting makes it harder to foster trust and solidarity. Face time is still the best way to build relationships. Studies have found that even occassional face-to-face meetings of “virtual teams” significantly increased trust and boosted performance.

3. Loss of energy
Yahoo’s office was virtually empty on a Friday, demoralizing and sucking the life out of the rare few who did turn up to the ghost town.

Telecommuting to church?
If this is true of Yahoo, how much more of your local church. You might be able to get better sermons online, or it might be just so much more “efficient” to simply listen to your pastor’s podcast. But if you regularly “telecommute” to church, you are losing more than you are gaining. You are losing valuable opportunities to learn from the “chance” meetings with other Christians in the foyer, in the corridors, and in the car park. You are undermining trust and unity between Christians. And you are sapping vital energy from the demoralized body of Christ.

So push yourself out of bed, get in the car, and get along to your local church. You’ll learn surprising lessons from the most surprising people, you’ll build valuable relationships, and you’ll get and give morale-boosting energy.

Interesting opinion on how the culture of telecommuting could affect the church Here in Portugal, we stream our Sunday services for people who may not be comfortable attending an Evangelical church and for shut-ins and people who are ill. Recently a brother told me that his wife wanted him to stay home from church and just watch it online at the house. He replied by saying that it was good to have it online, but it is just not the same as actually attending the service and worshipping with the rest of the local assembly.

http://www.antiordinary74.blogspot.com/ E.J. Dolce

Amen to this article! Corporate culture is encroaching on churches everywhere. One result is to produce “Christianity a la carte” or “Jesus on Demand”. I know about it because I was once in that crowd. Nothing substitutes for shoulder-to-shoulder Christianity and unless one is in the most extreme circumstances, a believer should be a regular at his/her local assembly.